There is a popular saying which says that money can’t buy you friends. But nothing can be further from the truth. Indeed, in the online world it’s easy to buy a bunch of Facebook fans or Twitter followers. The going rate is about £15 per thousand on average! Yet these friends won’t meet you for dinner or buy you a drink. In fact, they don’t even exist. They are bytes a server somewhere in cyberspace. Other times they are real people, but rewarded for liking your Facebook page with points to play online games or given free downloads.

A recent study by Marco Calzolari, a professor at Milan University, shows that a massive proportion of followers of some of the world’s biggest brands are not real at all. Based on criteria such as the number of posts from a fan’s Twitter account and the use of specific writing styles in Facebook posts, he concluded that nearly half of any brand’s social equity is probably false. Taking the computer maker Dell as an example, he estimates that about 700,000 of their Twitter followers simply don’t exist. 

There is no evidence to say that any of these brands have actively bought followers – automated bots often attach themselves annoyingly to people and brands without payment. But some businesses do buy a social media following. Faked personas are at the centre of a very vibrant and growing hidden economy. Your brand may be approached directly via your Facebook or Twitter account. Or if you so wish, there are plenty of offers on eBay to set up fictitious profiles.

For many businesses this is very tempting. A strong following can boost credibility and business, especially for start-ups which can look like a booming company thanks to a buzzing Twitter account. But large firms are not averse to such trickery. A small number of followers in the early stages of a Facebook campaign can be galling at best and damaging to a brand at worst. Buying crowds of fans can give an artificial boost. But such boosts are rarely effective in the long term.  Remember, these fans are bytes on a server. They are not real customers engaged with your brand and ready to spend money on your products.

For now, this skulduggery works. Most ordinary people do not yet know that this activity exists. They have a real trust that a brand’s social equity is real. But many brands are finding diminishing returns of large followings, whether naturally grown or artificially bought. When everybody has a huge following, any impact is much reduced. And consumers are starting to wise up to sharp practices. 

Another impact of this activity is to put into question the whole area of social media measurement and analytics. Artificial fans and friends severely distort measures such as reach, share and influence, to mention a few. How can you trust these numbers when they are corrupted by some brands trying to make themselves more popular than they really are? Here is a very strong argument for treating social media listening with a big dose of skepticism. Instead, we strongly recommend putting your trust for insight into online communities. They are made up of real people with real views, real feedback and real opinions.

So where does all this leave us? Just remember, money can buy you friends—just not very good ones.